Word: banking
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...Sept. 16 a money fund marked its net asset value below $1 - sacrilege for an investment meant to be the same as cash. After the Reserve Primary Fund "broke the buck" because of debt it held that was issued by the now-bust investment bank Lehman Brothers, institutional investors scrambled to withdraw their money. Sept. 18 brought additional worries: Putnam Investments said it would be shutting down one of its money market funds, and the ratings agency Moody's warned it might downgrade 13 of Lehman's funds. (Lehman's asset management subsidiary was not part of the bankruptcy...
...back to be beginning, to being a do-nothing. At this point, there is a greater risk from mass redemptions - like a run on the bank - than there is from a rash of money funds declaring that their assets have gone bad. Money market funds are designed to be low risk, and by law are allowed to invest only in government bonds, certificates of deposit, short-term IOUs issued by companies, and other highly liquid securities - though, unlike the similarly named "money market deposit accounts" found at many banks, they're not FDIC-insured...
...Will more companies have to step in and prop up the value of their money market funds? Probably. Will more funds break the buck? Maybe. But short of having all your money in FDIC-insured bank accounts, which most likely carry lower yields, there aren't that many options that are safer...
...Chinese proverb, it probably should be. As Gao Xiqing, the chief investment officer of China's $200 billion sovereign wealth fund, meets in New York City this week with Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack to discuss increasing the Chinese government's stake in the venerable - and flailing - investment bank, he bears an obvious burden. Last December, the CIC (the China Investment Corp.) invested $5 billion for a 9.9% stake in Morgan Stanley (for which the bank must pay CIC a 9% annual dividend until 2010). On paper, that investment is now down more than 25%. Worse, Beijing paid $3 billion...
...past couple weeks, a bad investment climate has turned into the worst financial crises in decades, forcing the bankruptcy of a major investment bank, the merger of one more, and a government bailout of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the American Insurance Group—pillars of American financial markets that have been teetering on the brink of collapse...